The goal of the CELAR project is to develop methods and open-source tools for applying and controlling multi-grained, elastic resource provisioning for Cloud applications in an automated manner. This resource allocation is to be performed through intelligent decision-making based on:
(a) Cloud and application performance metrics collected and cost-evaluated through a scalable monitoring system and exposed to the user.
(b) Qualitative and quantitative characterisation of the application‘s performance through modelling of its elastic properties.
CELAR covers the three layers required by an application to operate over the Cloud:
- infrastructure layer
- monitoring/optimization middleware (automatic elasticity provisioning over cloud platforms and multi-layer monitoring)
- programming development environment (through a distributed tool to enable developers, administrators and users to define the characteristics of their applications, deploy them, and monitor performance).
The outcome is a modular, completely open-source system that offers elastic programmability for the user and automatic elasticity at the platform level. This outcome can be bundled in a single software package for one-click installation of any application alongside its automated resource provisioning over a Cloud IaaS.
Two exemplary applications that showcase and validate the aforementioned technology will be developed: The first will showcase the use of CELAR technology for massive data management and large-scale collaboration required in the on-line gaming realm, while the second will focus on the area of scientific computing, requiring compute- and storage-intensive genome computations.
The CELAR consortium is well-positioned to achieve its objectives by bringing together a team of leading researchers in the broad set of large-scale technologies (Cloud/Grid Computing, service-oriented architectures, virtualization, analytics, Web 2.0 and the world of the Semantic Web). These are combined with active industrial and leading user organizations that offer expertise in the cloud application domain and production-level service provisioning.